Patrick: Market Basket at 'critical' point'

GREENFIELD — Gov. Deval Patrick said he would likely speak Wednesday to the feuding cousins at the center of the billion-dollar Market Basket crisis.

Comment

By LAUREL J. SWEET

capecodtimes.com

By LAUREL J. SWEET

Posted Aug. 21, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By LAUREL J. SWEET

Posted Aug. 21, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

GREENFIELD — Gov. Deval Patrick said he would likely speak Wednesday to the feuding cousins — Arthur T. Demoulas and Arthur S. Demoulas — at the center of the billion-dollar Market Basket crisis, saying negotiations have reached a "critical point."

"We've been checking in the last couple days, more through staff," Patrick told reporters. "I'll probably talk to the Arthurs later today, but I think based on the updates I've had, there's still a sense that a resolution is getting closer. There are a lot of complicated issues and a lot of history."

The nearly monthlong battle between new management and employees and customers of the multibillion-dollar supermarket chain started when the board controlled by Arthur S. Demoulas ousted his cousin Arthur T. Demoulas in June.

That has prompted job walkouts and protests by many of the chain's 30,000 workers, canceled contracts by vendors, and thousands of part-time workers have seen their hours cut to zero.

"Frankly, it's taken longer than it should," Patrick said. "It's a very complicated transaction in which the employees are caught up. This is unusual for all the reasons you know."

Patrick and New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan met with the warring sides on Sunday to attempt to negotiate a deal that would resolve the dispute that is decimating the company, which employs thousands of people in both states.

"We met on Sunday evening for, I don't know, five hours — something like that. We had a lot of conversation trying to find a resolution. We left — all of us left — that conversation feeling hopeful that a resolution was within reach," Patrick said today in his first public remarks since the negotiations.

Sources told the Herald yesterday the two sides have a self-imposed Friday deadline to strike a deal.

"One of the things I asked them to consider is an internal deadline, really, because there are a number of issues that could be debated endlessly," he said. "It seems that a transaction and agreement on deal terms, which is not my place or a governor's place, but that does seem to be a prerequisite to get a resolution of the internal operating issues. They seem to be working productively. They seem to be at that critical point."

The crisis, stemming from a decades-old dispute between the cousins, has plunged one of the region's most stable and lucrative businesses into peril, threatening the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and billions in revenue.

"I'm not negotiating to get the deal done," Patrick said. "What I want is to get a deal done because a deal seems to be a prerequisite for stabilizing the company. My interest is, and I think the workers' interest is, getting the company functioning again so that they can go back to work."

He added: "Nobody wants to have the business remain on its knees this way. Nobody wants to have the people who work for Market Basket out of work, especially the rank-and-file folks who are most in jeopardy. My understanding is the company has continued to pay people for the time they've worked, but if they don't have customers to serve or supplies to sell, then that becomes a bigger and bigger problem."